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Kyle Busch on Phoenix pole; Keselowski to start 14th, Johnson 24th

November 8, 2012

Kyle Busch will start Sunday's key Sprint Cup Series race from Phoenix on the pole. Photo by LAT PHOTOGRAPHIC

Brad Keselowski easily won the first round of his weekend battle with Jimmie Johnson on Friday afternoon at sunny-and-warm-into-cloudy-and-cool Phoenix International Raceway. It may not prove significant on Sunday, but Keselowski finished 10 positions ahead of Johnson in qualifying for Sunday afternoon’s AdvoCare 500-K.

Kyle Busch, the last driver in the 44-driver qualifying line, won the pole at a track record 138.217 miles per hour. Fellow Toyota driver Martin Truex Jr. was second at 138.217 mph, then Toyota driver Denny Hamlin at 137.578 mph. Chevrolet driver Kasey Kahne ran 137.478 mph and Aric Almirola in a Ford was fifth at 137.211 mph to complete the top-five. Kurt Busch, Paul Menard, Regan Smith and Tony Stewart (all in Chevrolets) and Toyota driver Mark Martin completed the top-10. Carl Edwards had the old track record of 137.279 mph, set in February of 2011.

The pole was Kyle Busch’s second this year, his second all-time at PIR and only the 10th in his 292-start Cup career. Almost half the qualifiers ran when the track was warm and sunny. Speeds picked up after heavy clouds covered the track. “We could see it coming, and it finally shaded the whole track,” said Busch, who welcomed the cloud. “As it got darker and the track lights did more good, you could see the track getting faster. It was about halfway through the [qualifying] session when it started getting faster.”

“I don’t know how much it matters [that he out-qualified Johnson],” Keselowski said. “Three hundred laps [312, actually] is a lot, and I feel like if you start in the back, you’ll be able to get (to the front]. We saw Denny Hamlin go to the back twice at Martinsville and drive to the front, and that was supposed to be a place you couldn’t pass. If you’re good, you find a way.”

Johnson couldn’t pin-point why he was so slow. “It wasn’t so good, and we’ve been fighting a little bit in qualifying trim,” he said. “But, we’ve got a great baseline race setup to go off [for Sunday]. For me, it was really turn one and the sun glare. It was pretty bad getting into that turn, then getting the power down was tough for me up off [turn] two. Three and four were pretty good on both of my laps, but oddly enough, I struggled down there [turns one-two] this time.”

Ironically, Busch is having a strong “playoff” even though he’s not championship eligible. In the past, he’s qualified for the Chase, then struggled. This year, with the Cup out of reach, he has five top-five finishes and six top-10 finishes in the first eight Chase races. “Chase or not, we always want to win, and we always work hard to win,” he said. “We unloaded strong today, so we just made some fine-tune adjustments to it. The car was awesome after we adjusted a little bit from practice to qualifying, expecting the track to change some. We hit it right on the money.”

With Sunday’s 312-lap, 312-mile race and next weekend’s 400-miler at Homestead-Miami Speedway, only Johnson and Keselowski have a realistic shot at the Sprint Cup. Johnson, a five-time champion, takes a seven-point lead into Sunday afternoon’s 500-K at the 1-mile track at Avondale, Az. Bowyer trails by 36, thought by most to be too many to make up in two races.